220524 Lifestyle of prayer

General Thomas Jackson served under General Robert E. Lee in the war between the states. The General having served as a Major in the Mexican American war was a teacher at the Virginia Military Institute when the call to arms was sounded when Virginia entered into the war.

The General became known for his battle tactics to include his coolness in battle which earned him the name, “Stonewall”

Along being known for his skill in warfare, Stonewall Jackson was known to be a man of prayer. A prayer warrior. Sometimes his men would hear the General out in the woods having what sounded like a conversation. When someone asked who was the General talking to, another replied that he was talking with God.

After being wounded at Chancellorsville, and was laying in his hospital bed when asked by the orderly who was attending him about 1 Thessalonians 5:17, and Jackson replied

When we take our meals…there is the grace. When I take a drink of water, I always pause, as my palate receives the refreshment, to lift up my heart to God in thanks and prayer for the water of life. Whenever I drop a letter into the box at the post office, I send a petition along with it for God’s blessing upon its mission and upon its Mission and upon the person to whom it is sent. When I break the seal of a letter just received, I stop to pray to God that He may prepare me for its contents and make it a message of good. When I go to my classroom and await the arrangement of the cadets in their places, that is my time to intercede with God for them. And so of every other familiar act of the day.”

Let us now draw our swords and turn to the fifth Chapter of Thessalonians verse 17 this evening to learn what the spirit teaches us on the subject of prayer.

Opening Hymn: in the Sweet By and By

We concluded Sunday with the mandate (imperative) to rejoice always.

Now come to another commandment for the Christian.

Prayer.

1 Thessalonians 5:17 (NASB95) — 17 pray without ceasing.

προσεύχομαι [proseuchomai /pros·yoo·khom·ahee/]

to speak to or to make requests of God—‘to pray, to speak to God, to ask God for, prayer.’

In some languages there are a number of different terms used for prayer depending upon the nature of the content, for example, requests for material blessing, pleas for spiritual help, intercession for others, thanksgiving, and praise. There may also be important distinctions on the basis of urgency and need. The most generic expression for prayer may simply be ‘to speak to God.’ It is normally best to avoid an expression which means primarily ‘to recite.’[1]

In a relationship there is two-way communication.

With God, it is in word that The Lord has chosen to communicate with us.

I was reminded this week the adage

If you want to hear God speak to you, read his word.

If you want God to speak out loud to you, read his word out loud

In turn our conversations back to the Lord is in prayer.

IN speaking with God it is called prayer in order that we may not forget that our conversation is with the Sovereignty of the universe.

Prayer of the well-motivated believer is no contrived or in repetition.

Matthew 6:7 (NASB95) — 7 “And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words.

Is there a secret in prayer?

Not any more of a secret than my ability to talk to any one of you. There is a relationship there. As I have said repeatedly from this pulpit is that God is a person.

A.W.Tozer writes in the Pursuit of God

God is a person, and in the deep of His mighty nature He thinks, wills, enjoys, feels, loves, desires and suffers as any other person may. In making Himself known to us He stays by the familiar pattern of personality. He communicates with us through the avenues of our minds, our wills and our emotions. The continuous and unembarrassed interchange of love and thought between God and the soul of the redeemed man is the throbbing heart of New Testament religion.[2]

A person that desires a relationship with you even Moreso than any of us could want a relationship with him.

How do I know.

Why is it that God has gone to the trouble of opening up every path that we could know him and love him and walk with him?

Why did Christ have to die for us.

Why are we indwelt with the spirit?

Why grace?

Why mercy?

Why the canon of scripture which is the mind of Christ?

Why doesn’t God who hates sin not drop a lightning bolt down on us when we sin?

It can’t be because God needs us. God is self-sustaining.

My prayers to him is as I speak to anyone else but never forgetting that I am speaking with the sovereignty of the universe.

Was it funny when we read of the patriarchs that at one point Abraham could talk to the lord in barter with him over Sodom? And then at another time fall prostrate in the presence of the Lord.

Same with Moses. At one point be arguing with the Lord about his decision to wipe out the Israelites and at another time on his face before the Lord.

What is interesting with both of these cases is this.

The divine privilege of being included in God’s planning.

In 1 Kings 22:22 there is a discussion in heaven as the Lord brings in the divine council to determine what was going to happen to Ahab the wicked king.

God does not need a council but what God does is to extend divine privilege to allow the volitional creatures to enter into His divine planning.

The spirit comes up with an suggestion that God knew from eternity passed and then acts upon that suggestion.

God has also extended the privilege to man as well.

After announcing the birth of Laughter in the coming year, the Angels continue their journey toward Sodom.

Genesis 18:17–22 (NASB95) — 17 The Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, 18 since Abraham will surely become a great and mighty nation, and in him all the nations of the earth will be blessed? 19 “For I have chosen him, so that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring upon Abraham what He has spoken about him.” 20 And the Lord said, “The outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah is indeed great, and their sin is exceedingly grave. 21 “I will go down now, and see if they have done entirely according to its outcry, which has come to Me; and if not, I will know.” 22 Then the men turned away from there and went toward Sodom, while Abraham was still standing before the Lord.

The Lord reveal his plan to the patriarch which gives Abraham the opportunity to enter into God’s decision and plans actually becoming a part of it.

Genesis 18:23 (NASB95) — 23 Abraham came near and said, “Will You indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?

And it goes on as the Lord allow Abraham to intercede. Only problem was that it was Abraham who choses to stop at 10 righteous.

Moses as well, God opens the door to intercession when he is about to wipe out the stiff neck Jewish people.

Numbers 13:14-19

And how much more you and I who are the Royal Family of God made righteous by the blood of Christ that we might enter into the throne room to Speak with our Aba Father on matters of heart.

Listen think about the relationship when it comes to prayer.

What peoples pray to a deity that they call Father?

I never heard the muslims pray Father Allah. Or Father Budah.

We are no praying to some aloof God. we are praying to our Father.

As Abraham drew knew to speak to the Lord, we are have been brought near by the work of Christ.

The same council that the Lord precides in our Sovereign Kings Court you and I will out rank in eternity. How much more will the Lord listen to members of his own family?

It is prayer that we have the opportunity to affect the course of history. Our Father does not answer every petition the way we might ask or want but none the less he listens.

No my prayers are not to one that has so much to do with running the universe that it becomes only a memo that I write hoping he will get around to it

I am Esther who enters into the court of the great king adorned in my royal apparel approaching the one who can with the wave of a hand have me put to death but none the less he says to me

My dear one, what is it that you want, and I will give you up to half of my kingdom.

I can’t tell you to get up in the morning and start praying. And to pray like stonewall or any other great prayer warrior. For if I tell you to do so on the basis of praying itself I feel it would be useless

But like rejoicing the command is followed as we draw nearer to God. as we are walking consistently in the spirit of the Lord. when you recognize on a consistent basis that the Lord is right there with you, what are you going to do?

Ignore him?

Tell him to go away?

No. your going to start talking to him about every thing all the time.

[1]Louw, J. P., & Nida, E. A. (1996). In Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament: based on semantic domains(electronic ed. of the 2nd edition., Vol. 1, p. 408). United Bible Societies. [2]Tozer, A. W. (2006). The Pursuit of God(pp. 13–14). WingSpread.

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